The most challenging aspects of spending a study year in the United States used to be coming to grips with the language, learning to live with the host family, and finding a way into the hierarchy of U.S. high school, but such problems are trivial when pitched against the new visa regulations that are making it increasingly difficult to gain access to the country in the first place.

New visa regulations which came into effect at the beginning of August call for hopeful German exchange pupils to present themselves at the American Consulate General in Frankfurt for an official interview. But with exchange program nationwide sending an average of 10,000 pupils off for transatlantic study each year, the new directive has met with criticism amongst placement agencies and politicians.

German MP calls for rethink

The process of personal interviews is not only massively time consuming, both for consulate employees and the pupils and their families, but it is also of questionable effect. “They ask only four or five questions there, most of which have already been addressed on the application,” Alexander Bonde, a Greens member of parliament, told Der Spiegel magazine.

In a letter to U.S. politicians, Bonde said that these bureaucratic hurdles were having a negative effect on the official exchange program between the U.S. Congress and Germany's Bundestag. He called on his colleagues in Washington to support the international exchange program by reviewing the new system.

Tougher rules for university students

German high school exchange program participants are not the only ones who are affected by the tightened regulations, international university students are also having to cut through increasingly thick red tape in pursuit of study in the States. Science students are particularly affected by the clamp down on visa distribution. Certain groups of scientists, such as laser experts now find themselves waiting indeterminate periods of time to be -- or not be -- granted a visa. Since the September 11th terrorist attacks, laser experts belong to those groups of people deemed suspicious and in need of detailed scrutiny.

As word spreads about the far reaching effects of the new visa rulings, German student exchange programs have already reported a rise in the number of students considering studying in Australia, New Zealand and Canada as opposed to the United States. It is bad news for the American science community, and for universities all over the nation whose science departments are traditionally home to a high percentage of foreign students. And with the American Association for the Advancement of Science reporting that last year one third of all PhD's awarded went to foreign students, the reality is that America would struggle to remain in pole position in terms of research if the number of foreign students drops.

Hassle for international travelers

The new U.S. visa regime may not have been in force for long, but it has managed to cause something of a furor amongst more than just budding scientists. Just as the school children wishing to participate in an exchange program are required to attend an interview, so too are all applicants from non-waiver nations wishing for a non-immigrant visa. Although this is a more time consuming way of getting the necessary paperwork, there is perhaps some merit in implementing a more thorough system of visa distribution.

But the measure that has left many travelers floundering, is the suspension of a regulation which enabled international air passengers to travel through the United States for transit purposes without first obtaining a visa. The ruling, which doesn't apply to citizens from visa waiver countries including Japan and Western European nations, came hot on the heels of intelligence information which indicated that terrorist groups had been planning to exploit the transit program in order to gain access to the United States or to U.S. airspace without being subjected to the consular screening process.

Many travelers were unexpectedly caught out by the sudden implementation of the new ruling and had no option but to sleep on airport floors until they could either be re-routed or granted the now vital transit visa.